In particular in aircraft of the manufacturer AIRBUS, doors are provided that include a door operation handle, which must be pulled upwards in order to lift and open the door. The movement must be conducted in an opposite direction for lowering and closing the door. Each passenger door includes a separate handle for arming or disarming a dedicated emergency escape slide.
Emergency escape slides of each door have to be armed before flight. This means that the operation of the door is directly coupled with the actuation of the escape slide arranged at the respective door. Arming and disarming is generally conducted by the cabin crew after all doors are fully closed, which is conducted after all passengers have boarded the aircraft. Disarming the slides is conducted after the aircraft has reached its final parking position after flight. Only after disarming the escape slides, the doors should be opened in order to prevent an inadvertent slide deployment.
A common slide arming mechanism coupled with the slide arming lever is rather complex as a kinematical chain of several levers and rods is used, which extends from the slide arming lever to a girt bar coupled with the escape slide. Consequently, the required force for moving the slide arming lever is rather high.
WO 2009124859 A1 discloses a system for preventing inadvertent escape slide deployment, comprising a sensor for sensing the proximity of a person in front of an aircraft door, and an optical warning means operable to provide an optical indication in the vicinity of a slide arming lever when the sensor detects the proximity of a person in front of the aircraft door.
EP 1 719 084 B1 discloses an alarm system for an aircraft door comprising a sensor for sensing when the door operating handle is about to be gripped by an operator through sensing a hand pressure of an operator gripping the handle or through sensing light, heat, humidity or chemical parameters responding to contact with a characteristic of an operators hand, an aural alarm associated with the sensor and operable to sound when the sensor detects that the handle is about to be gripped, and means for automatically arming the sensor and/or aural alarm when the emergency evacuation slide of the aircraft door is armed so as to be released if the air craft door is opened.